Strasbourg Observers

View posts from: Article 2

  • Dr. Alice Dejean de la Bâtie

Fraisse et al. v. France: Against the Normalization of Systemic Violence in Protest Policing

May 06, 2025

By Dr. Alice Dejean de la Bâtie Can the lethal use of an explosive grenade by law enforcement during a protest ever be justified? This question is at the heart of Fraisse et al. v. France (27 February 2025, nos. 22525/21 and 47626/21), a case brought before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) following […]

  • Grażyna Baranowska, Marie-Bénédicte Dembour and Isabel Kienzle.

Evidencing Pushbacks at borders of CoE Member States: Third Party Intervention in A.A.N. and Others v. Greece (38203/20)

April 18, 2025

Grażyna Baranowska Marie-Bénédicte Dembour Isabel Kienzle This post, an output of the DISSECT project, is concomitantly being published on the DISSECT blog Regularly operated at many borders of CoE member states, pushbacks are problematic practices from a human rights perspective. They generally violate the principle of non-refoulement under Article 3 ECHR as well as, most […]

  • Violetta Sefkow-Werner

Individual vs. representative applications or environment vs. climate issues – The ECtHR’s Cannavacciuolo and Others v. Italy judgment

April 02, 2025

Violetta Sefkow-Werner The recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) in the case Cannavacciuolo and Others v. Italy of 30 January 2025 concerns a large-scale pollution phenomenon in the Italian Campania region caused by decades-long illegal and uncontrolled waste disposal by private actors and sustained by the government’s systematic […]

  • Corina Heri

Vindicating the ECtHR’s Role in Environmental Matters: Cannavacciuolo and Others v. Italy

March 11, 2025

Corina Heri On 20 January 2025, the ECtHR issued a Chamber judgment in Cannavacciuolo and Others v. Italy. This environmental pollution case concerns an area known colloquially as the Terra dei Fuochi (“Land of Fires”) because it is notoriously plagued by the illegal dumping, burying and burning of waste on private land. This decades-long practice, […]

  • Sibel Yılmaz Coşkun

Paradox of Escape from Violence: Suicide as a Potential Consequence of State Negligence in Vieru v. Moldova

January 31, 2025

By Dr. Sibel Yılmaz Coşkun In its judgment Vieru v. the Republic of Moldova (19 November, 2024), the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Moldova violated, among other rights, its substantive obligations under Article 3 ECHR by failing to provide adequate legal protection to T. and take effective measures against prolonged domestic abuse. However, […]

  • Vladislava Stoyanova

Validity Foundation on behalf of T.J. v Hungary and the role of factual causation for finding breaches of positive obligations under the ECHR

December 20, 2024

by Vladislava Stoyanova Introduction Validity Foundation on behalf of T.J. v Hungary raises some important questions about the standard of causation in the human rights law reasoning. This blog post does not aim to challenge the conclusion in the judgment that in fact appears very reasonable. This post is rather a continuation of my reflections […]

  • Jef Seghers

Scientific complexity and judicial legitimacy: What does the KlimaSeniorinnen judgment bode?

June 14, 2024

By Jef Seghers On 9 April 2024, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR, the Court) issued its long-awaited Grand Chamber judgments in three climate litigation cases. This post is about the most comprehensive of the three judgments – and the only one in which the complaint was not ruled inadmissible: the one in the […]

  • Dr. Türkan Ertuna Lagrand

Beyond Opuz v. Turkey: the CJEU’s Judgment in WS and the Refugee Law Consequences of the State’s Failure to Protect Victims of Domestic Violence

February 20, 2024

By Dr. Türkan Ertuna Lagrand Introduction Fifteen years after Opuz v. Turkey, Türkiye is once more the source for a groundbreaking judgment of a European court focusing on domestic violence. In its judgment of 16 January 2024 in WS (C-621/21), the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has established some long-awaited crucial interpretations to […]

  • Christopher Roberts

Machalikashvili and Others v. Georgia: The Critical Importance of the Burden and Standard of Proof to Human Rights Adjudication

March 17, 2023

Christopher Roberts Machalikashvili and Others v. Georgia concerned the killing of T.M. by members of the Counter-Terrorism Department of the State Security Service (‘SSS’) of Georgia on 26 December 2017. The precise circumstances in which this killing took place, as well as the integrity and comprehensiveness of the investigation subsequently conducted into the killing, were […]

  • Spyridoula (Sissy) Katsoni

How to Get Away with Refoulement: Some Thoughts on Safi and Others v. Greece

September 07, 2022

Spyridoula (Sissy) Katsoni Reports on deadly pushbacks at European borders have become so frequent by now that they hardly seem shocking. Yet, even the toughest of hearts cannot but be affected when reading the facts behind the Safi and Others v. Greece judgment, released by the European Court of Human Rights (Court/ECtHR) on the 7th […]

  • Luke Maginness

Precedent set for UK Government to whitewash history of state authorised killings through GRIBBEN vs United Kingdom judgment

August 02, 2022

My intention is to explore the reasons for the judgment in Gribben v. United Kingdom (Application no. 28864/18). I want to provide context to the judicial decisions through an exploration of prior case law and the mechanisms of law which were used to come to these decisions. Case facts Gribben v. UK, centres around the […]

  • Christos Tsevas

Religious Conversion, Asylum Law and the ECtHR Case-Law: M.A.M. v. Switzerland

June 21, 2022

By Christos Tsevas In the case M.A.M. v. Switzerland, the ECtHR concluded that there would be a violation of Articles 2 and 3 of the ECHR if the applicant were returned to Pakistan in the absence of a thorough and rigorous ex nunc assessment by the Swiss authorities of the general situation of Christian converts […]

  • Joyce de Coninck

MH and Others v. Croatia: Resolving the Jurisdictional and Evidentiary Black Hole for Expulsion Cases?

January 14, 2022

By Joyce de Coninck MH and Others v. Croatia concerns the return of a family of 14 Afghan individuals from Croatia to Serbia, which resulted in the death of 6-year-old Madina Hussiny. This case is yet another in a rich line of recent cases relating to the rise of institutionalized pushbacks at the external territorial […]

  • Sjoerd Lopik

The Second Anniversary of the Urgenda Climate Ruling: A Day to Celebrate?

December 28, 2021

By Sjoerd Lopik Today marks the second anniversary of the Urgenda climate ruling of the Supreme Court (Hoge Raad) of the Netherlands (a translation of the ruling can be accessed here). With its ruling, the Supreme Court finalised the first case in which a national court issued a specific order to a government to reduce […]

  • Joseph Finnerty

Carter v. Russia: Evidentiary Solace before the European Court of Human Rights?

November 02, 2021

By Joseph Finnerty The Chamber’s Carter v. Russia judgment indicates a revolution for the Court’s approach to the extraterritorial application of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR). Its publication suggests a turn away from its, to put it diplomatically, conservative case law on the subject. Its innovation also extends to its approach to attribution […]

  • Cornelia Klocker

Estemirova v. Russia: A missed opportunity for the protection of human rights defenders

October 08, 2021

By Dr Cornelia Klocker Does the finding of an ineffective investigation and a violation of the duty to cooperate compensate for a non-engagement with the substantive limb of Article 2 ECHR? Natalia Estemirova was one of the most prominent human rights defenders in Chechnya, investigating and documenting cases of enforced disappearances, abductions, torture and extrajudicial […]

  • Dr. Ramute Remezaite

Proving incidents in custody: significance of expert evidence in Lapshin v Azerbaijan

September 28, 2021

By Dr. Ramute Remezaite The significance of evidence in the adjudication of individual human rights complaints by the European Court of Human Rights (Court) is indisputable: the Court will normally rely on the evidence provided by the parties and the facts established in the domestic judicial proceedings. In some instances, such as those relating to […]

  • Lisa Weinberger

Kurt v Austria: A missed chance to tackle intersectional discrimination and gender-based stereotyping in domestic violence cases

August 18, 2021

By Lisa Maria Weinberger* On 15 June 2021, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) rendered its judgment on the domestic violence case Kurt v Austria. This case concerned a woman in Austria who experienced domestic violence at the hands of her husband, which resulted in his murdering their son. Based […]

  • Dr. Dilek Kurban

Gasangusenov v. Russia and the right to life: When the ECtHR establishes state responsibility with the wrong reasoning

July 05, 2021

Dr Dilek Kurban (Fellow and Lecturer, Hertie School, and Max Weber post-doctoral fellow, EUI, 2021-2022) What should a supranational human rights court do when faced with a case concerning extrajudicial execution of civilians by a state agent? Certainly not what the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR or the Court) has done in the case […]